You may have seen a tweet recently about reupholstering a chair.  And maybe you’re wondering about that chair.  Well, here it is, in all of it’s stained and smelly glory, waiting to be loved on.

We picked it up off the side of the road for free earlier this month and it’s been waiting patiently on our front porch for some new fabric.  I’m still unsure if it’s possible to even do it.  I’ve been searching online for tutorials and hemming and hawing over if I should go for it, or just drop it off at Goodwill for someone else.  I think it would be a great chair for our dining room if we recovered it in a simple linen or ivory colored fabric.  But is it worth it?

What do you guys think?  Should I go for it, or not?  Will it be a waste, or a fun project?  I’m on the fence still…

We’ve been busy around here at the Jewel of the Prairie, sprucing things up in our foyer, building a compost bin, and now, updating our guest room!  Eventually I’ll post more about progress on the spa bench for the bathroom, but for today, you get pretty pictures of our (very much still in-progress) guest room!

Here’s what it looks like today:

Now, for the story…

When we bought our house, this room was occupied by a young boy and was decked out with a sports theme, complete with baseball fan, football cross bars, and a wallpaper border.  And let’s not forget the forest green ceiling, shall we?

Since we A) don’t have an 8 year old boy with a sports obsession, and B) don’t enjoy cave-like rooms, we knew this would be a HUGE overhaul.  Soon after we closed, we got to work on removing the wallpaper border, and priming the room for some fresh paint.

I seriously have nightmares when I remember priming and painting this room!  With that dark green paint, it took two coats of primer to get good coverage on the walls and ceiling before we could paint.

Already looking brighter, right?  We chose a light blue color for the wall, hoping to coordinate a bit with some furniture I’ve had since I was a teenager, which formerly belonged to my mother as a child.

A little brighter than we expected, but it was still a HUGE improvement from what we started with.  \

We added furniture into the room, and the wonderful quilt my mom made for me, and for a while, the room looked like this…

Again, let me remind you where we started:

So much better, right?  Well, there was obviously still a lot more we could do with this room besides paint and change the fan out for a light from a different room.  I had dreams for drapes, artwork, and hopefully, a bedspread that matches the room a bit better (the quilt will have a new home in a different room).

Fast forward a few months, and I finally was able to snag the last missing piece to complete the furniture set – the headboard!  In the 10+ years I’ve had this furniture, we were never able to get the headboard from my grandparents due to the size of it.  After a quick trip in April to help them move, I was able to bring back the headboard in a U-Haul trailer, and at last, she’s with the rest of the family!

Ignore the awful color in this photo – take a cue from me and never take pictures at night!

We switched out the quilt for something blue, which works a bit better, but still doesn’t quite fit.  Maybe I need to recruit my mom to do something custom once she finishes the half a dozen other quilts she’s making  We also put in another lamp on the left that was a garage sale steal for $1.  Sure, it’s huge and probably would look better in a living room, but it works for now.

The most recent update to the room is something I’m super excited about – drapes!  I found some inexpensive drapes at Ikea, and after some drilling and leveling (thanks DH!) we now have some glorious flowing drapes to add a little bit of softness to the windows.

The print is a bit more modern, but still soft and organic looking, which is just what I was looking for.

I also snagged a white throw pillow on sale at Macys for $10.  The quilt stays for now, along with the gold sheets. Obviously this combo is SO working!  *cough cough*

A couple of other additions to the room include a vintage fan we found at Good Will for $3, a huge stack of art books in need of a home, and a little print that I might hang somewhere in the room.

What do you think of the floor lamp with the orange, blue, and white?  Do you think it’s too much?  I kinda like it, in a very vintage-meets-traditional-meets-modern kind of way.

Over on the dresser, I added a negative botanical print from a photography class I took in high school, a handmade glass hurricane that used to be in my great grandparents summer home on Washington Island that I rescued from my grandparent’s basement , and three Swedish and Danish painted plates and hangings that belonged to DH’s grand parents that I’m going to hang in the room somewhere.  Oh, and a cute little stack of books

I love the changes so far

For a while I’ve been absolutely ITCHING to try one of Ana’s projects over at Knock Off Wood.  If you haven’t checked out this website yet, you are about to hit the jack-pot of all DIY jack-pots.  She designs copy cat versions of furniture from Pottery Barn, West Elm, Crate & Barrel, and posts the building instructions for free.  Yup, free.  It’s absolutely amazing.

I’ve mentioned before how I’d love to make a fun craft center or this beautiful console table (no longer necessary now that we’re inheriting a similar piece from my generous mom).  But I haven’t gotten around to any of that.  Blame it on lack of time or motivation, it just hasn’t happened. Neither of these projects are urgent things I need to have now, ya know?  But I did find something on her website that was an absolute perfect fit for our first floor bathroom:

It’s a super simple spa bench!  One thing that’s kind of problematic about our first floor bathroom is that there isn’t much storage:

That builder basic vanity cabinet is all we’ve got, plus the one towel bar.  Kind of a bummer when this is the main bathroom guests use.  For a long time I couldn’t really think of any feasible solution to our storage problem, but then I realized that a small bench right under the towel bar would be just the key, especially if it had a lower shelf to store towels and wash clothes.  Hence my joyous celebration when I found the plans for this simple, crisp, and clean spa bench!

I’m not sure what kind of would I’ll use for the top, sides, and legs – but it will definitely be something pretty and I will do it myself!  I’ll let you know how it goes.  I’m headed to the lumber yard today to stock up!  Wish me luck!

I’m back for part 2 of our exciting edge-of-your-seats installation of our dishwasher.  Let’s get to it!

Yesterday, I told you how we solved our little plumbing and electrical problem by cutting a few extra holes in our cabinet and rerouting the electrical hook-up and cutting the copper pipe so we could thread the hose connection into the sink cabinet base.  Here’s a picture of what the final configuration under our sink looks like:

That’s a lot of stuff going on, so as said in the Princess Bride, lemme ‘esplain.  No, that is too much.  Lemme ‘sum up.

It’s a crazy mess of hoses and wires under there now, but it works!  The Inlet hose attachment comes up through the cabinet floor and then has a loop that sticks into the side of the cabinet before it attaches to the shortened copper pipe.  That large weird looking attachment at the end of the hose is a “leak detector”…or something fancy-schmancy like that.

The drain hose also comes in through the cabinet floor and then loops up high in our cabinet so there is an air pocket before it attaches to the garbage disposal.

The air gap is necessary so that you don’t have back flow into the dishwasher or nasty sewer or disposal smells, which was a major problem with our previous dishwasher.  You can see that for now, we just used a bit of electrical tape to hold the hose up.  Fear not, eventually there will be a more permanent solution.

Last, there’s the junction box, which connects the electrical line that DH changed in the basement to the electrical to power the dishwasher.  Again, eventually we’re going to try to nestle the junction box towards the back of the cabinet so that it’s out of the way.

Once we had all of the hoses and electrical in place, and had leveled the dishwasher, we did a test run to make sure everything worked okay.  We were a bit concerned that all the kinks and bends in the pipes would cause problems, but not so!  Everything worked perfectly!

We finished installing our new dishwasher by putting in a few screws under the countertop and putting on the kick plate, and then she was done!

All bright, shiny, and new!  Looks great, right?

I was a little concerned about how stainless steal would look in our kitchen with our other white appliances, and with our dark cabinets, but I think it’s a HUGE improvement over our old dishwasher.

Here’s a before and after so you can see the difference

Love it!  We’ve started filling it up for our first load, but we already know from our test run that it is SUPER quiet.  This makes me giddy with excitement.

Of course now I must venture into the world of cleaning stainless steal appliances.  I’ve heard of the never ending fingerprints and smudges.  I’m actually more concerned about water.  As you can see, right above our dishwasher is all of DH’s coffee-making stuff (I’m really resisting using a more negative adjective…) and there are often drips and pools of water after he’s finished in the morning, many which will end up on the dishwasher.

Does anyone have any stainless steal cleaning tips?  I’d love to hear ‘em.

Hope you enjoyed our dishwasher installation play-by-play.  I realize a lot of our “problems” are fairly unique to our house, but hopefully it will prove helpful for anyone else who chooses to go the DIY installation route.  We figure we saved about $100 by doing a self-installation.  And since we’re still DIY newbies, we’re giving ourselves a big pat on the back for this one

After much discussion (and begging) I convinced my husband to install our new dishwasher in our kitchen.  It’s been sitting in the middle of our kitchen for a week and a half, proving to us both that there’s no room for an island in our tiny kitchen.

Proof is in the pudding, folks – here’s our makeshift dishwasher island:

Glamourous, isn’t it?  You can also see first hand evidence of the awful fluorescent lighting we have – lovely, yes?

On to the dishwasher…

First step was removing our old dishwasher.  We followed these directions here and here for uninstalling our old dishwasher.  The process was relatively straightforward – turn off the electrical for the DW, shut off the water right under the sink, and then remove all electrical and water connections and unscrew the dishwasher from the counter, then shorten the legs and wiggle the old guy out of the cabinet housing.  It took a little while to remove the old dishwasher – probably about 1 1/2 hours – but that’s because I have a very thorough, patient, and perfectionist husband   The only tools we used were a screw driver, pliers, and a small pan to catch the water coming out of the water inlet line.

Once we had the old guy removed, we realized we were going to have to do some creative problem solving in order to install our new dishwasher.  The electrical and plumbing for our old dishwasher were both in inconvenient places for our new one.

(Hello ugly pealing latex paint!)

The copper tubing came to the front of the cabinet for our old DW, whereas our new DW has an included hose at the back that needs to be threaded into the neighboring cabinet under the sink.  And the electrical needed to be moved as well.  I think at this point, we were oth convinced we’d have to call a plumber.

But we persisted.  We managed to cut a hole in the subfloor and the cabinet base with a reciprocating saw to reroute the electrical – thank God for the drop ceiling in the basement, or this would have been impossible.  You can see the new electrical line running in through the cabinet base.

Then we had to solve the water inlet problem, which was really stumping both of us.  We had to get this hose…

to go through this hole…

and attach that large plastic bit at the end of the hose to this copper tubing or pipe, which happened to also be the wrong size.

Fun times, right?

Basically, we had three options.

1.  Shorten the copper tubing and make the connection to the dishwasher hose BEHIND the dishwasher in the same cabinet.  We wanted to avoid this so we have access to the connection for the inlet in case of leeks.

2. Loop the copper tubing back around into the sink cabinet (basically doubling back due to space) and put the provided hose through a new hole in the cabinet and have the connection under or on the floor of the sink cabinet.  For this option, we were worried we’d kink the tubing if we weren’t super careful.

3. Run the provided hose into the sink cabinet, cut the copper tubing, and make for a very tight squeeze (if it’s even possible) in the sink cabinet.  For this one, we thought we’d need to call a plumber, which we were hoping to avoid.

After much discussion, and pleading for help on gardenweb.com in the plumbing section of their forums, we found a solution that would give us the best of all solutions: completely DIY, inexpensive, and would result in our preferred configuration of hoses, pipes, and tubes.  (Did you know there’s a difference?  Yeah, I didn’t…)

Here’s a little diagram to explain the plumbing below our sink:

On the left, you’ve got the 1/2″ copper tubing that goes into the cabinet housing the dishwasher, which is to the left of our sink.  Apparently most copper tubing is 3/8″ inch, but we discovered ours was conveniently an abnormal size.

Next, you have a 5/8″-3/8″ reducer.  The 5/8″ refers to the outside diameter (OD) of the 1/2″ copper pipe, which is to the right.  Furthest right is the ball valve, which is used to shut off the water supply to the dishwasher.

In order to fit the hose connection into this area, we decided to cut the copper pipe…

and use a union reducer to fit the 1″ hose to the 1/2″ copper pipe.  We cut the copper pipe using a $10 pipe cutter that we found at our local hardware store.  We also bought a new brass union reducer since the one included with the dishwasher would not fit our copper pipes.

Here’s a view of our new shortened copper pipe fitted with union reducer and the freshly cut hole in the cabinet base for the hose.

Now that we’ve got our plumbing set correctly, and our electrical rewired (we even installed a junction box!) I think we’re finally ready to install the dishwasher.  Seriously, the detour to fix all of this took about 2 1/2 hours!  It was exhausting.  Stay tuned for part two, in which we ACTUALLY install the dishwasher.  It’s edge-of-your-seat action here, folks!

I love this idea – taking vintage tea cups and making a clock!  I’m not sure if I love it enough to do it myself, though.  We’ve got a random assortment of tea cups with no real significance to them, and I bet a trip to an antique store and Good Will would give me enough to make my own DIY clock.  But where in the world would I put it??? Would it be totally weird to put in a bedroom?

What do you think?  Cute, or too much?

Taken from Sweet paul: time for tea? via How About Orange

We have a plate rail in our dining room.

A photo from our final walk through before purchasing our house.

I consistently struggle with what to do with the plate rail.  Should I put plates on it? Pictures? Nothing?  It goes around the entire room like a skinny stripe at eye level, and while it looks pretty, it makes decorating awkward.   Furniture needs to be just the right height, otherwise it looks incredibly misplaced.

Currently, I have a smattering of odds and ends on the plate rail: some tea cups and saucers around one side of the room, which is way more country than my typical style, and a little collection of photos and a pretty platter on the other side above the piano.

But when I saw this post over at Little Green Notebook, I wondered if it might offer some inspiration:

Picture rails are hung a bit higher (usually near the top of the wall) than plate rails, and then the pictures are hung from the rail.  The picture above shows a slightly lower picture rail, almost the same height as my plate rail!  As soon as I saw it, I thought to myself, “Finally! something that is similar!”

I’m not sure if I would actually hang pictures from our plate rail, but I like the idea of a collection of frames at different heights.

Or, I could hang photos just above the plate rail, like in this photo.  I like how this is very clean and simple, not cluttered or fussy.

Or a more punchy dining room with a similar idea.

I think all of these options are much more interesting than the typical row of plates I’ve seen in plate rail photos online.

To me, these always look like a parade of plates or accessories.  It starts to look tacky and cluttered.

Now that I have a few more ideas and I look back at our dining room, I’m reminded (yet again!) of how much I want to paint that room!  The forrest green makes the room feel like a cave at night, and while the golden yellow is nice and cozy, we have that color in abundance elsewhere in the house.  I think it will end up being something a bit lighter – either an ivory, or a pale gray green/blue.

Question for the crowd: Do you have an architectural features in your home that have stumped you?  The plate rail has always been difficult for me, what about you?

For wanting to paint our master bedroom?

I mean, the room is freaking HUGE. (this is from when we went house hunting)

And it has the same color of paint EVERYWHERE, including the vaulted ceilings.

It’s not a bad color – a nice soft sage green.  But, it’s kinda boring and ho-hum to me.  I’d kind of like something a little bit closer to turquoise, a la my favorite two inspiration pictures:

But, it would take FOREVER to paint our room.  And I’m not sure I could convince DH to pay someone since he’d probably be more than fine keeping it the way it is.  I know it’s not a huge change, but I love the look of the slightly blue/green turquoise with the salmon/orange and white, plus all the natural colors.  Feels very soothing and calming.

Maybe some day…

Earlier last week, before this took the blog world into a mad craze, I discovered an AMAZING resource in the form of one very crafty and thrifty blog – Knocked Off Wood.

She takes popular furniture pieces, like this canopy bed from Pottery Barn…

And creates floor plans for the DIY carpentry enthusiast!  Or beginner

Her plans include more than just a picture, though.  She’s got dimensions, cut lines, recommendations for wood and finishes – she’s thought of it all!

I’d love to try making any of these that she has plans for:

A sleek book shelf that I think would look great on our second floor.

A great console table or buffet.

This cute little craft organizer that’s very customizable.

Or if you’re super advanced, try this island table!

It’s originally $5000 from Williams Sonoma, but you could build it for probably $200 (not including the granite counter, of course!)

What a great way to save money AND have a wonderful piece of furniture that you built yourself and could pass on to future family members!

Is there some piece of furniture that is way outside your budget but you’d like to take a stab at and build yourself?  Or maybe you’d just like to dream about building something?  Is it a simple table, shelf, or a more complicated entertainment system?  Do tell!

One of the first things I complained about in our new (old) house is the kitchen faucet.

See here?

(No, my kitchen isn’t this clean.  This is from when we were house hunting almost a year ago.)

Well, that there faucet BUGS THE CRAP OUT OF ME!  Seriously.  It’s a pull out spray faucet and is lovely and everything, but one VERY important feature is lacking.  Rotation.

I kid you not – our faucet does not swivel, twist, rotate, or whatever you want to call it.  It is permanently stuck in that one position.

Which means, our 2 basin sink is annoying to do dishes in, because water only fills one side, and to get in the other, you have to pull the sprayer out, turn the water on with the other hand, fill/wash item, put item down, turn sprayer off, and then put sprayer back. Way too many steps.  OR you can spray water EVERYWHERE while you attempt to use the sprayer once the water is already on.  I full admit to using both strategies and hating both!

So, I’m on a mission to find a new kitchen faucet.  Maybe someday we’ll gut the whole room and redo it (cracking linoleum floors is SO stylish right now), but for now, I just need a functional kitchen.  I’d be a happy woman if I had a better faucet.  *ahem*

But I can’t find one I like! I’m super picky and heavily research any purchases that I’m going to be stuck with on a day to day basis for more than a week, so I’ve been waffling about this for months.  So please help me!

Here’s my requirements:

- Needs to have a brushed or polished silver finish

- Needs to either have a three hole fixture or an included deck plate (or both)

- I’m liking the current goose-neck high-arch look, and since we have a big sink, I think this will work

- Needs to be a pull-out or pull-down sprayer since the other whole for this is currently occupied by our broken RO water dispenser.  The sprayer should have a pause button or some cool feature similar to that

- Needs to not cost an arm and a leg (less than $300 for sure, but preferably even less…)

There ya go, now hit me with some ideas!